


Pierc'd

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angelic Team Building Activities, Coming Untouched, Drunken Shenanigans, Ear Piercings, Jacobean Era, M/M, Nipple Piercings, Nipple Play, Piercings, Victorian era, and Next Sunday AD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 17:58:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Aziraphale has been pierced by Cupid's metaphorical arrow many times, and not taken proper note of it happening.In a more literal and practical sense, Aziraphale has been pierced three times.





	Pierc'd

**Author's Note:**

> Separated from my laptop and my WIPs, but able to borrow a laptop overnight from someone without an AO3 account, I'm really only able to write directly in the 'new work' field here, but here I am...

    He'd been drunk. That's what he tells himself, when, suddenly sober, he finds himself looking in the glass at the pearl dangling from his ear. Crowley's fingertip nudges it just barely, and he feels a curious tug when it swings. A pearl capped with gold, and it feels rather too much, but... well, it suits his outfit. He'd been drunk, that's why he'd allowed Crowley to talk him into it. 

 

    He'd been tipsy, at least. And Crowley had taken him... 

 

    They had been tipsy, after the theatre, and everything had been wonderful. The crowds had been spectacular, and they'd been in the stalls, Crowley whispering all sorts of wicked asides to him and laughing at the dirty jokes, and mostly trying to distract himself from what he dubbed the absolute misery of Jacobean tragedy. 

 

    Crowley had said 'pearls suit you'-- not his outfit, but  _him_. He'd whispered in his ear, and he'd made it sound so enticing, and then he'd said he would buy it for him, if they did this little thing together, and it had hardly seemed worth arguing. The hole would have been easily miracled away if he'd not liked it. 

 

    He'd liked it very much. He'd liked seeing Crowley's smirk in the mirror just past his shoulder, and the silver snake that dangled from his own ear, which he's sure no jeweler made-- or if he had, he'd not made it so fine as it was after being in Crowley's hand. And had his own pearl been as sizable and as smooth?

 

    He _likes_ it very much. The pain had been an experience, but... well, it fades easily enough. Perhaps it fades as easily as it does because he encourages it to, and perhaps the other angels would tell him he was overdoing the frivolous miracles again, but if they could see him now, that would be the least of their concerns. It had been exhilarating, though, and Crowley had let him squeeze down on his hand during-- though he'd done it quite hard and it must not have been very comfortable! But it had felt so curiously wonderful, he'd been shot through with all sorts of lovely hazy feelings to counter the pain, the same as any human might have felt. 

 

    Crowley walks him to the house where he is a boarder, and he touches the pearl one last time, looks with some consideration at it, before he says goodnight and leaves. Aziraphale looks at himself in the glass again, in the room he lets, where he still isn't used to the way he looks with that pearl hanging from him. A lovely thing... a _gift_. He is unused to gifts-- he doesn't think anyone but Crowley has ever really given him one, though certainly he has been done kindnesses... But there was no purpose in gift-giving in Heaven, when he had been there... Perhaps angels who have spent time on earth do exchange tokens now, he doesn't know, but before he came to earth, it certainly wasn't the done thing. He never thought to want a gift, until Crowley first presented him with something simply because it might please him to have it. 

 

    He stares at himself some time before he can tear his attention away, and return to his nightly reading.

 

\---/-/---

 

    The next time he'd seen Crowley, the snake dangling from his ear had held a pearl of its own, like a little golden egg in its mouth.

 

    Aziraphale had recognized that pearl. He'd spat it into his own hand, centuries ago-- over sixteen centuries ago!-- and he'd given it to Crowley. He hadn't thought of it as something so grand as a _gift_ himself, at the time, he'd only... They had laughed over the discovery, and Crowley had called it lucky, and Aziraphale had cleaned it up and handed it to him, he had said 'for luck, then', but really he had thought the deep color of it was half as lovely as Crowley's eyes.

 

    He wasn't supposed to think a demon's eyes lovely. Even a bare reminder seemed a poor idea when the thought had crossed his mind at all.

 

    It means something to see it again, to know in an instant that he's looking at the very same pearl. It has the same color, the same size. He remembers it perfectly, how it had felt on his tongue, against his teeth. The little weight of it in his palm. The way it so softly gleamed by candlelight. The way Crowley's brows had lifted, at having it offered, the way he had smiled. 

 

    He wasn't supposed to think a demon's smile lovely, either. He had done. He'd been tipsy then, too. So he reminds himself, when he remembers that night. 

 

    He's not sure what he could even say about it, that Crowley still has the pearl. It was such a little thing, to not have lost it over sixteen centuries. When he'd given it, neither of them owned much. The clothes they wore, really. For some time, they hadn't, though now Aziraphale has some things he keeps. A trunk full of books, an enormous one. Another case with what clothing and such he's kept, little personal items. 

 

    He compliments the earring, and half hopes that Crowley might say something, some sideways winking thing to let him know... he doesn't know what.

 

    That he's _important_? He shouldn't want to be. Even if it wasn't wrong, wicked, even if Crowley wasn't a demon, to want to be _important_... To want to be _special_ , above all others? How unspeakably terrible of him to think such a thing, when he is one of the Host. 

 

    But Crowley thanks him, and Crowley smiles, and Aziraphale tells himself it is _more_ than enough. 

 

    He doesn't know what else he could have hoped for, or what he would have done with it.

 

\---/-/---

 

    When earrings go out of fashion, Crowley miracles over the hole he'd once had in his ear, as if it had never been there at all. Aziraphale leaves his. He feels very sentimental about that little scar, though his body needn't bear it. He keeps the earring, though he doesn't expect he shall wear it again... Perhaps if fashions change again that way, but he would have to get the hole re-opened, wouldn't he? Easier not... 

 

    It shouldn't bother him, not to see the same evidence at Crowley's ear. There's no reason for it to bother him. Crowley may do with his earthly vessel as he pleases, after all. He may be as unblemished as he likes. 

 

    It bothers him.

 

\---/-/---

 

    "Aziraphale!"

 

    Aziraphale cringes in anticipation, and sure enough, Gabriel's hand claps down against his shoulder. He turns, seeing Gabriel and Sandalphon arm in arm, Michael and Uriel behind. Dressed well, all of them. He feels a bit shabby in comparison, though he likes his clothes and they'd been quite nice when he'd bought them at the start of the century. They show their age, though, here and there-- he shall be needing a new waistcoat soon, and trousers, those need replacing... but he shall be sorry to change it all. Oh, he likes the current fashion just as much, he does, but he'd been so _fond_ of his old things, that's all. He's always so fond of his things, it aches a bit to let anything go. But the foursome before him, they all look resplendent in golds and silvers, in creams and pale, pale mauves. In swathes of taffeta, in buttery silks and soft flannels, in warm wool. He would dress so, certainly, only it seems a waste when his old clothes serve... 

 

    "Gabriel, what a-- what a pleasant surprise." He lies, and feels he ought to be punished for lying, only it is only a small social lie, and wouldn't it be wrong to be rude to him as well? "I hadn't known that I would-- that I would be _blessed_ with such company. Have you all had tea?"

 

    "Tea?" Gabriel wrinkles his nose, and exchanges an amused look with Sandalphon. "Ah-- that's Aziraphale for you! What a joker! No, we will not be imbibing any earthly fluids, Aziraphale. We've come to earth on a team-building exercise."

 

    The punches to Aziraphale's shoulder are gentle, for Gabriel. Not gentle enough. He supposes he appreciates the _spirit_ in which the gesture is intended... or he supposes he _ought_. 

 

    "Oh. How pleasant. A little trip together, is it? Well I can give you my recommendations for a day in the city if you'd like, there are many fine places to, to team-build!"

 

    "You misunderstand me. The _whole_ team is to go. Isn't that wonderful news? You must have missed the light of your heavenly compatriots greatly, and we do not forget your great sacrifice in remaining here to thwart demonic wiles."

 

    Aziraphale's face falls in slow motion, slow enough to catch it and paste a rather panicked smile in place, though he's somewhat surprised Gabriel doesn't see through him. Not that insight has ever been Gabriel's strong suit, but deception has never been Aziraphale's. 

 

    Oh, he has deceived, more than a good angel ought. He knows that, he's not proud of it. But... mostly, he thinks, when in panic or embarrassment he lets slip an untruth, it's not that he is effective so much as no one wishes to bother disciplining him for it. They accept, or they seem to, that he only gets so _nervous_ and then things slip out and sometimes they aren't exactly true, and sometimes he knows they aren't true but he says them, but it isn't done in malice, it isn't done out of _wickedness_ , or surely they would punish him.

 

    They would punish him if they knew how well a certain demon had worked his wiles only two nights prior... No. They would _destroy_ him.

 

    "Well, one must be ever vigilant, against the forces of evil. I keep a very close eye on the demon Crowley, absolutely. He puts quite a-- quite a damper on the goodness I try to spread in the area, what with all the time I must spend on thwarting his ways, but you'll find he rarely slips one past me, yes. Wily, er, wily serpent that he is, you know. Very busy, he keeps me. I probably shouldn't take the day off. He does keep me on my toes, I mean. And I would hate to be negligent in my duties!"

 

    "Commendable!" Gabriel thumps him again, his smile open. In moments like these, he puts Aziraphale in mind of a very large and over-friendly dog, and while of course Aziraphale loves all of the Almighty's creatures, he would not rate very large and over-friendly dogs among his favorites. He should like them much less if he were in the position of having to kowtow to them.

 

    "You shouldn't make him if he doesn't want to." Michael says, and Aziraphale knows it's only because she doesn't want to put up with him on a fun outing, because Aziraphale is awkward, is difficult, and not in quite the same way that Gabriel is awkward. He's still grateful.

 

    She's settled into gender, since the last time he spoke with her, has become definitively female. He hasn't actually talked to her since the Great War, though they've seen each other to nod to several times since. She'd picked up gender early in an experimental way, but Aziraphale has never actually heard her voice, since she traded the booming but neutral tones of a time long before for a voice suited to an earthly vessel. It's funny the ways you know people and the ways you don't, he thinks. It's funny the little things you notice when you've been away from home so long. 

 

    "Nonsense, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Aziraphale needs time with his brothers and sisters." Gabriel insists. It had been 'brothers', once, and 'brothers' had been without gender in their tongue. Funny how things change. Funny how he sometimes still thinks of them all as brothers even as he holds in his mind that many are as female as any earthly creature to have been born that way. He translates their old word and forgets the connotations that bringing it into a human language adds into things. Forgets these little meanings.

 

    "Well, that's very kind, of course, but... there is my duty to think of..."

 

    "Aziraphale." Uriel huffs softly. "It's not good for you to go so long without _proper_ Heavenly contact. We _want_ you to come."

 

    "Oh." Something hopeful flutters beneath his breast. "We do? I mean-- you all-- would like that?"

 

    "If you can bear to come away from your duty for one evening." Michael nods, her tone dry. And yet, Uriel is encouraging, and he hasn't really known Uriel to be encouraging towards him in some time... and Michael, well! The War took such a toll on her, she'd led so many into battle and seen them fall around her, and not been quite the same since. He had hoped, the first time he saw her change her look, that she was finding a new self, shedding some of the old scars, but he doesn't think that's the case, really.

 

    He can't think of anyone in Heaven who... who _likes_ him, really. Well, Gabriel, but he hardly counts, he likes _everyone_. He doesn't like Aziraphale for Aziraphale's sake, he likes him because he is a thing of perfect love, because he graces his smiles and goodwill upon all their kind. And Aziraphale knows he should not ask to be special, but sometimes he just wants to think there's an angel somewhere who likes him for who he is. Uriel has never particularly liked him, but she seems genuine enough now, and... and Michael is being as warm as she has ever been since the War. He knows what Gabriel will say.

 

    "It would be good of you to." Sandalphon says, when Aziraphale dares a glance his way.

 

    Sandalphon has never liked Aziraphale, Aziraphale is sure. Well, the feeling has been mutual, since the cities of the plain. It had been such a _tragedy_ , he'd thought. Even if most of those who had died were wicked, a tragedy. It had made Aziraphale uneasy. He'd had to push away _Doubt_ with a strong drink, after that. Why they'd had to blind a crowd of men who were only going to perish by dawn in a rain of fire... It was the sort of thing that got chuckled about around the water cooler for a bit, Aziraphale hadn't liked that.

 

    It's not that he _needs_ Sandalphon to like him! But the fact that Sandalphon thinks it would be good for him to join the group regardless, it feels good, doesn't it? It feels good to be wanted, and that's the way it _should_ be. He _should_ want that, to be accepted, to have his company desired by his colleagues. That's _Right_.

 

    The five of them take a rowboat along the river, and take it in turns to row two at a time, an odd sort of round-robin of seat-switching, with five. Aziraphale isn't any good at rowing in tandem. 

 

     When he and Crowley had done this, Crowley had done all the rowing for them both. Aziraphale had packed the picnic.

 

    None of the other angels, he thinks, would be much interested in a picnic... they hadn't even wanted tea. He looks a long moment at the spot where Crowley had pulled over, where they had spread out beneath the shade of a tree and imbibed far too much wine, and cheese and grapes, and oh, cucumber sandwiches. Cake. His head had been swimming, before they even got to the cake. When they did, what with the wine and all, he'd felt... 

 

    It is hazily remembered and best left so, but he still probes at the memories. Still remembers Crowley's whisper in his ear, and how pliant he'd felt on good wine and rich cake, and the pleasure of a boating excursion where he'd not rowed a stroke, and the dappled sunlight, the cool shade, a stomach just pleasantly over-full. A beautiful day.

 

    "Nipple piercing." Gabriel says, yanking Aziraphale from his reverie. There had been more, but he hadn't caught it, only those two words had leapt out at him. 

 

    Understandably, he thinks.

 

    "I do beg your pardon?" He sputters.

 

    "I said, have you heard about this new thing humans are very into around these parts? It's called nipple piercing." Gabriel repeats.

 

    His own gives a rather sympathetic throb. "I have heard tell, yes."

 

    "We're going to go as a group, we think. Get them done all matching." He grins, as if this is at all an ordinary thing to do with one's close coworkers. 

 

    "If you get two hoops you can string a chain between them." Michael adds, in the same tones with which she might have mentioned a new hat. 

 

    "I'm afraid I can't." Aziraphale protests, his face flooding with heat. "I simply can't."

 

    "Nothing to be ashamed of!" Gabriel reaches over to give him another friendly thump, before he and Michael row the boat ashore. "Our vessels are glorious works which  _require_ no adornment, but that doesn't mean we can't adorn them. It is all for a greater glory. When you feel good about your earthly corporation, it shows. And a happy angel is a productive angel."

 

    "Yes, well, I don't need to go and get my nipples pierced in order to feel good about my corporation, thank you very much! I don't see how a pierced nipple is going to help me in the fight against evil!"

 

    Crowley had held him, Crowley had held him to help him keep still, and pinched him, and he'd, had he squealed? He was drunk, and he does not remember, he tells himself he does not remember. He'd pinched him, fingers cold, and then there had been a pain bordering on ecstasy, and a simple golden hoop there at his left nipple. There, all but at his heart. And Crowley...

 

    They hadn't spoken about it much, except in drunken whispers, in giggles. They hadn't used the word 'matching', although they had matched to each other. Crowley's had been silver, but it had been at his left, as well. They had matched once before and Crowley had erased all evidence. It had been his idea then, too, but he had cast it aside once it was not fashionable. 

 

    Aziraphale had never been able to cast something aside upon the whims of fashion.

 

    He doesn't know what it means, that he should be so ready to put holes through himself at a demon's suggestion-- though of course it matters that the demon is Crowley. Crowley wouldn't hurt him, not in a real way, would he? They were... friends, even if they couldn't speak the word, don't dare speak the word... Did friends normally go and get matching nipple piercings? At least he can rest assured that it's considered a perfectly acceptable friendly activity in Heaven, they just wouldn't approve of the friend.

 

    He's had the little scar at his earlobe two hundred years, and the gold hoop at his breast two days. And he absolutely cannot show the latter to his colleagues.

 

    "Come _on_ , Aziraphale." Uriel says. "We're going to do it as a team. You're still part of the _team_ , aren't you?"

 

    "Of course! I just-- It seems very painful!"

 

    "Surely battling the forces of Hell is more painful still."

 

    "Well... well, that is-- normally, you see, with Crowley-- Well, I-- About the same, perhaps? But-- I do mean to say! I do mean to say!"

 

    "Well, if you feel so strongly about it." Gabriel shrugs. "But I wish you'd come with us. Like Uriel said, you're part of the team. You can't keep ducking all our team-building exercises. I know evil never sleeps, but even angels need time to recuperate. _Do_ you recuperate?"

 

    "Oh, yes, sufficiently." He nods. "I recuperate all the time. I mean, not _all_ the time! Because I am... normally quite busy, grappling with dark forces. Moving in secret, pulling the strings to ensure heavenly ends. All that. And Crowley is a very wily enemy, you know, it isn't, it isn't simple, so... so I do recuperate, of course. Work to keep my strength up for the good fight. I mean, should my carefulness ever fail me and we come to blows, I should, I should want to be prepared, but that's not happened so far. I work in concealment, we've never, never gotten physical."

 

    His back had been to Crowley's _chest_ , Crowley holding him still and whispering in his ear and the _pain_ and the shock of pleasure which sang through him, the way his head had lolled back against Crowley's shoulder, and he had remembered the way it felt once upon a time, when Crowley had touched the pearl dangling from his ear and he'd wondered if he might... 

 

    He hadn't.

 

    Aziraphale leaves his colleagues. He returns to his shop. He heads up the stairs to his largely-unused little flat.

 

    He stands before his full-length mirror and he removes his waistcoat. Through the thin fabric of his shirt, he can see it. The way the left nipple stands a bit stiff and swollen, the shape of the little hoop. He strips the shirt away, and the undershirt leaves even less to be imagined. If he breathes, he can feel the way the fabric moves against his skin, how sensitive he is... even with preternatural healing, his every nerve seems so easily set aflame. 

 

    He shrugs free of the undershirt, and he stares at himself. The left nipple seems _rosier_ now. Is it only the contrast of the gold, or is it to do with the sensitivity he was never aware of before the night Crowley pinched at it and told him pain was temporary and beauty forever? He'd known _that_ was untrue, and yet it had flattered him to be in the same vicinity as the very word, and so he had laughed and tried to hold still, and agreed to the thing. His waistcoat and shirt unbuttoned, his undershirt pushed up out of the way, Crowley holding onto him, he'd have agreed to anything. _Wine_. Wine in his veins, he'd have agreed to anything. It was the wine which had pushed him so far, not the... not Crowley, nor his strong arms, nor his clever tongue, nor his clever fingers.

 

    Not that Aziraphale had experienced his clever tongue in anything near to the same capacity as his clever fingers, and that had only been to make what was flat stand firm for the piercing. 

 

    He touches the ring, and he does not dare tug at it, when every sensation already seems so much more than it _ought_ , so much more than it _was_.

 

\---/-/---

 

    They'd fought. 

 

    Aziraphale hasn't seen Crowley since, though he has looked for him. It has been... longer, than it usually is. And they usually do not fight. This...

 

   Well what was he supposed to do? _Holy water_! What did Crowley think would happen, why would he ask such a thing of him? No, _how_ could he ask such a thing of him? How could he ask him to provide the means by which his only friend might... might die, forever, be truly gone, be beyond any hope of saving from the first drop? Doesn't Crowley understand that Aziraphale... that he loves him? Just as dearly as if they were yet brothers in Heaven? Indeed, so much more dearly, for being here on earth... _here_ where he needs him, where he needs someone who understands, and no one has ever understood him as Crowley does, and no one _could_. And he loves the Host, but it is a distant, hungry love, always with the creeping need for something their love for him cannot provide. 

 

    Crowley is different. Crowley seeks him out... because he is _Aziraphale_. No one else... no one else does that. No angel, however well-meaning, however gregarious, however filled with love, has ever wanted the mere, pure pleasure of his company. _His_ company, as if no one else's would do to replace it. 

 

    He feels the ache deep within his chest, feels the sting of words thrown back at him in bitterness and contempt, feels the fear of losing him, feels the shame of having been the first to turn away. He'd not walked two steps when he wanted to turn and rush back, but he couldn't, he _couldn't_. 

 

    He keeps the little gold hoop this time, though they go out of fashion. Under layer upon layer, no one knows. But Aziraphale feels it, and sometimes, alone in his little flat, he stands before the mirror and tweaks it, and wonders at what the pleasure-pain that runs through him is for.

 

\---/-/---

 

    The next time he sees Crowley, he fairly bursts with love for him, and this time that love has a name, more than that... 

 

    Oh, it is an enormous thing. It is too much to fit inside his earthly vessel, it truly is. Love pours from him, love is in his every breath, it sings from him. 

 

    He knows, too, those other feelings he has felt, those things his body has known which his mind had never quite been able to penetrate, those mysteries of desire. He lies in his bed, and he thinks of Crowley's smile, and he tugs slowly at the golden hoop and lets heat pool in him with no place to go, and hopes that as long as he never manifests any means to an end, his desires might not be such a terrible sin.

 

\---/-/---

 

    "You kept the scar." Crowley says.

 

    He is leaning very close, and Aziraphale's skin buzzes at his feather-light touch, a single fingertip making the tiniest circle at his earlobe. 

 

    "I suppose I did." He blushes. "I didn't see much point in vanishing it, people don't notice."

 

    _And_ , he does not say, _I always hoped you would_. _I hoped you would be ashamed to have removed yours, I hoped you would wonder why I had kept mine. I hoped you would remember that something once bound us_. Even now, he can't say any of it.

 

    Anyway, something far more than a bit of jewelry binds them together. He'd taken Crowley's hand, and Crowley had held him fast. They had said the words at long last. They'd embraced! They had even kissed, a bit, here on his sofa.

 

    "You should get it done again." Crowley says, and he nips at that earlobe. It sends Aziraphale half to pieces. 

 

    "I hardly think... my dear, I really don't... Men my age-- my apparent age, yes-- don't... Do they?"

 

    "Some do."

 

    "Yes, but certainly not with anything like the earring I've got, I'd look ridiculous sporting that old thing again."

 

    "You've kept it?" Crowley's smile goes soft, he leans back to meet Aziraphale's eyes. 

 

    "Of course. It was a _gift_. Haven't had many of those."

 

    "Well, I should buy you another one." He purrs, leaning back in. "Small, if you like. Tasteful. Simple little gold hoop?"

 

    "I already have one of those." The words spill out before he can think about them. He can hear Crowley swallow. A tentative hand brushes against his chest and a jolt goes through him. 

 

    "You've kept it?" It's a whisper this time, Crowley's nose just touching his cheek. "Oh, angel, let me see..."

 

    Aziraphale nods, and Crowley unbuttons his waistcoat, his shirt. Removes his tie with careful hands. Pushes up the undershirt beneath, and there it is, as it's always been. Only this time, Aziraphale doesn't need to look at himself in the mirror, the only mirror he needs is the way Crowley looks at him. The awe and the hunger.

 

    " _Angel_..." He hisses, and Aziraphale nods again, helpless before him. He watches Crowley's tongue steal out, lengthen and narrow and fork, and it brushes his skin just so as Crowley threads the tip through that little hoop, to _tug_.

 

    " _Fuck_..." Aziraphale groans, and Crowley's eyes go wide. He teases experimentally at the flesh itself, and tugs the ring again, his focus intent on Aziraphale, and it's...

 

    _Everything_.

 

    His hands roam, chest and belly and thigh, but his mouth stays right where it is, right where Aziraphale wants it. And the _sounds_ he makes, lascivious, the enjoyment he displays. What he gets out of it, Aziraphale isn't entirely certain, but he's too swept up in feeling this to care.

 

    He's never made a particular physical effort, outside of keeping up appearances-- he gave himself nipples when fashion dictated his chest might be on display publicly. He gave himself a navel when he realized those were standard on humans, and when public bathing became a bit of a thing. And for the sake of public bathing, of course, he'd given himself... theoretically operational equipment. It had always been a temporary situation.

 

    Indeed, he's not given himself anything of the nature when a particularly sweet application of lips and tongue, coupled with a particularly vicious tug, some particularly sharp teeth, and two particularly clever hands... _does_ something. Jolts through him more fiercely than ever before, and sets off waves of pleasure that leave him a garbling mess. 

 

    "Crowley-- _oh, Crowley, please_ \-- please, I can't _take_ any more!" He manages at last, pushing him away. Getting fervent kisses to his hand in recompense. "Ohh, what have you _done_ to me?"

 

    "It sounded like an orgasm." Crowley says, looking rather too smug.

 

    "It _can't_ be. Can it? I-- I haven't _got_ anything." He shakes his head. Crowley only looks even more smug at that, though, so... Aziraphale isn't sure. "I-- I've got nothing to _compare_ one to."

 

    "You could _give_ yourself something and I could give you the traditional variety, then you could compare." He offers, hand sliding up Aziraphale's inner thigh.

 

    "I'm not sure I'd _survive_." He says, blushing at Crowley's chuckle. At the thought of what it means, what it could be... "Er, and besides, isn't it rather your turn?"

 

    At that Crowley's eyebrows shoot up, and he makes absolutely no protest.

 

\---/-/---

 

   Aziraphale flashes Crowley a smile, slipping a hand into his. Cool, strong, as reassuring as ever. 

 

    "It's been a while." He chuckles. "I must say, one gets much more confidence from the places they do this now. Much cleaner."

 

    "Oh, much." Crowley laughs, and kisses his hand. "You relax. I've got the earring. You sure you want it in the other ear?"

 

    "I'm sure." Aziraphale smiles, tugging their joined hands back, kissing Crowley's. "I've gotten used to having a little scar just there. I find I don't want to cover it. Show me the earring?"

 

    Crowley opens his other hand, revealing a little gold snake, curled in a hoop, little pale stones for eyes. "All right? I can get you a plainer one..."

 

    " _Oh_." His smile doubles, and he squeezes Crowley's hand. "He'll be nibbling on my ear."

 

    "Prime nibbling location, any serpent would be lucky."

 

    "Well..." He relaxes back in the chair, ready. "Very good. I find the idea agreeable. And you?"

 

    "Still got my old one for fancy occasions, but why don't you pick, angel? And I'll wear whatever you think suits me."

 

    There had been a stud, a tiny silver feather... nothing could suit Crowley quite as much as his old one-- still holding the lucky pearl, after all these years? That first little token exchanged between them?-- but the feather would serve.


End file.
